


Strange Dreams and Shifted Stars

by clarebiscus



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Dreaming, M/M, OR IS IT, Thranto, but the VIBES are there. thranto vibes, dream fic, i tagged as ship but its not super shippy, its allll a dream, there is a death but, well its retconned anways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 05:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21265490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarebiscus/pseuds/clarebiscus
Summary: " ....but I expect you can see it too. Some of our stars are the same.”― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs





	Strange Dreams and Shifted Stars

The dream was a strange one. Strange in that it _ shouldn't _ have felt strange.

  
It was as if the universe had shifted slightly. The same stars as his own, shifted. It was sickeningly disorienting, and he felt foreign, a stranger in a place he should know. As if some detail had been altered and he could not place what, but it made the scene feel _ wrong _somehow. 

This, he supposed, is how he knew it was a dream. But the cold steel of the Chimera under his boots felt so real. 

A battle raged out in the cold vacuum of space, but what battle it was, he didn’t know. It felt so far away from where he stood on the bridge, the sounds of conflict muted and subdued. Suddenly where there had been no one, an older man who held himself with a captains’ grace but who had panic written on his face stood. Eli couldn't recall having ever seen him before, despite his imperial uniform. The man stared straight past him, at a point just behind Eli’s shoulder.

He didn't want to turn around to look at what the man was seeing. He wanted to leave this ship, this Chimera that wasn't_ his _ Chimera, to stop looking at these stars that weren't his own. The man stared and stared, and he knew he would have to look. No sound was made by either of them as he turned, dread pooling in his stomach.

The first thing he noticed of course, was Thrawn, seated in a large admiral's chair, legs spread in a casual yet authoritative stance. A sigh of relief escaped him and he very nearly smiled, for even in a dream, Thrawn would know what to do. He didn’t smile of course, because the second thing he noticed was the blood. A shock of cold doused his body, and his legs felt weak. Bile rose in his throat and his brain ran in circles around the red seeping into the white of Thrawn’s uniform, spreading like ink on a canvas. Eli felt sick.

Thrawn looked different too, in this shifted version of Eli’s universe. He looked older, the angles on his face more pronounced, sharper. 

Then a small smile found its way onto his sharp features and Eli realized that this was _ his _Thrawn. It didn’t matter what strange, altered version of the universe he was in. This was his friend. And his friend was dying.

Without realizing it, tears were streaming down his face. His throat constricted and he forgot he was dreaming. How could this be a dream when it felt so real? Thrawn's red eyes were so bright, brighter than he’d ever seen them in waking life. Red on blue, crimson on white, the stain spreading across the warlord’s chest. Brighter than the shifted stars, brighter than anything.

Words were coming from Thrawn’s mouth but Eli could barely hear. Something about art. His eyes were so far away. For a moment, Eli swore Thrawn’s gaze caught on his own, before looking past, looking far beyond. 

He was smiling now, but his eyes began to dim, and Eli could not help the sobs that escaped him. The glow of his eyes faded, and Thrawn, his admiral, his best friend, was gone. There was no captain beside him anymore. There was no Thrawn either, no blood stained uniform. Just Eli Vanto on the bridge of a ship, cold steel under his boots. The muted sounds of battle became quiet. The stars outside winked out. He was alone.

  


“Ensign Vanto? Are you alright? Eli?”

Eli jolted awake, cold sweat covering his skin, his navy issue pillow damp with tears.

Red eyes looked into his own, and he almost reached out to touch, to make sure this wasn’t an illusion, but stopped himself. He didn’t need to see the stars to know they were back in place.

“I, uh, had a strange dream.”

A pause.

“Do you dream, Thrawn?”

Thrawn’s gaze rested on him softly, expression unreadable.

“Sometimes.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> what if you dreamt you saw a version of your best friend die, would that be fucked up or what


End file.
